Does Your Inner Voice Like Pie? How About Cosmology?

Our new neighbors Helen and Matt brought us a homemade rhubarb pie as a housewarming gift. What fabulous neighbors!

However, making the pie touched off something of an epiphany for Helen, which she related to us a week later when we returned the pie plate with a return-pie in it (made by Batgirl). Helen also wrote it up in her blog, which I think everyone who's got a critical inner voice might enjoy:

Recently I baked a rhubarb pie as a gift. It went down a treat for my new neighbors. In return, today they brought back my pie plate with a beautiful berry pie baked in it. In between I had a bit of a revelation about Pi. [Click to read Helen's Pi blog entry]

Which reminded me of a similar revelation I had a couple of years ago. In my case, it wasn't pie that touched off my train of thought about the insidious nature of an over-critical inner voice, it was a pile of Time-Life books:

Last night I was packing up some books—a bunch of 80s era books on stars, planets, and cosmology—that I haven’t looked at since I was a kid. I pondered giving them all to Good Will, but something nagged me. It took a moment to pin the thought down, but it was essentially: “You’re the kind of person that would own these books, so you better keep them.

Really? [Click to read my blog entry Your Story]

Both these blog posts approach the same thing: recognizing whether you have an over-critical inner voice, and by recognizing it, taking the first steps to shushing it.

Want To Get Lucky?

I've long been of the opinion that "luck" isn't random. In my experience, luck is capitalizing on opportunities that come along, instead of ignoring them.

Imagine my vindication when I lucked onto an article by Richard Wiseman, who conducted actual scientific research on luck. As you might guess, he could find no supernatural agency at work. Quite the opposite.

Lucky people generate their own good fortune via four basic principles.

1) Lucky people are skilled at creating and noticing chance opportunities

2) Lucky people make lucky decisions by listening to their intuition

3) Lucky people create self-fulfilling prophesies via positive expectations

4) Lucky people adopt a resilient attitude that transforms bad luck into good.

And guess what--whether you already consider yourself a lucky person, or you think of yourself as unlucky, you can actively improve your luck by concentrating on one or more of these principles, as described in various exercises in Wiseman's article. Give it a shot, and see what happens. Who knows, maybe you'll get lucky.

Article: The Luck Factor

Your Story

Time-Life "Voyage Through The Universe"

Last night I was packing up some books—a bunch of 80s era books on stars, planets, and cosmology—that I haven’t looked at since I was a kid. I pondered giving them all to Good Will, but something nagged me. It took a moment to pin the thought down, but it was essentially: “You’re the kind of person that would own these books, so you better keep them.”

Really? What an odd thought. Who was I trying to impress with my (probably out-of-date) books on stars and planets, if not myself? If I was the kind of person who would own such books, you’d have thought I would have pulled one down to peruse during the last decade. Sure, in a pre-web era, I would have, but knowledge isn’t confined to dead trees any more, and . . . Well, the books ended up in the Good Will box.

That incident and a few other recent events made me realize how much a victim to our sense of “what other people think” many of us are. Have you ever wondered explicitly (or vaguely), “What will people think?” as you pondered doing, saying, trying, or arranging something different? Did the answer to that question influence your action in some way? If you’re a human being, then of course the answer is yes.

But just who are these people we’re so concerned with?

From an early age we’re taught what’s right and wrong. But for every one of society’s codified rules, there are a dozen unspoken guidelines that insinuate themselves into our gray matter. Society teaches us that it’s “right” to comb our hair, to buy a house, to get a 9-5 job, to get married, to have kids, and so on and on . . .

And at some point, we internalize “what people think” into ourselves, so that “society” becomes one more tiny voice in the chorus of personality fragments that make up each of us.

This can be slightly insidious if we don't recognize it, because our sense of ourselves, our very consciousness and self-awareness, is a story we tell ourselves about ourselves. Or so some people who study language’s effect on the brain believe. If true, then it follows that we not only want to create a story that's pleasing to ourselves, but one that's pleasing to others too. But others do not . . . How can I say this?

Let me put it baldly. For the most part, unless you’re breaking a law or a heart, other people don’t care.

Oh sure, they care, but not to the degree you might think they do. Other people are not you. And unless your particular decision directly affects someone, people in general don’t have to live with (or without) the decisions you make. And trust me, after their initial reaction, they won't give your particular decision hardly another thought until the next time they see you. They’re living their own lives, wrapped up in their own stories they’re telling themselves. As they should be!

Not all the decisions we make are as ultimately unimportant as whether we keep some dusty old books. But the point remains: Make decisions for yourself, not for the sake of what you believe “society” or some constructed version of yourself would have you do.

Also, if you’re looking for some Time-Life books on stars and planets, I know where you can get some cheap.

Be Part of Something Positive

People would rather be part of something they perceive to be succeeding as opposed to something they think is failing. True on many levels.

However, as was pointed out on my Facebook status when I posted the above sentiment, people enjoy rooting for the underdog. As TC says, "There's a strong attraction to the underdog in the American psyche."

But I'd argue that in the long run, people still want to stand with the winners. If an underdog consistently fails to overcome its underdog status and become a winner, it loses credibility. Eventually, people move on. Or, they stick with their one-time underdog that has made the transformation.

In addition, strong enough trust in a principle or cause can trump the perceived negativity in being associated with a minority opinion, business, or what have you. Which is probably why I support several causes and opinions that have only minority following in the USA.

Except . . . these causes/principles I support, while unpopular to a majority of americans, happen to be held by people I respect far more than a mass of people I don't know. Which means that I'm still part of something I perceive as successful; I'm not an outlier in my own self-selected peer group of belief.

Anyway, this is all a very longwinded way of saying: don't be negative. If you're negative all the time, people will eventually begin keeping their distance. If you own a small business, talk about your successes, not your anxieties and challenges in keeping revenue coming through the door. If you tweet or update your Facebook status a lot, keep the content generally positive or humorous.

This way, when you actually do have some sad news or melancholy thoughts to relate, your friends, followers, or customers will sit up and take note. When you have actual constructive criticism to offer, people will take you seriously. When your small business needs that tiny one-time pop, you'll get results. And so on.